Timeline for Do you have to include a license notice with every source file?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 10 at 2:21 | history | rollback | CPlus♦ | Rollback to Revision 3 | |
| Dec 21, 2020 at 7:56 | history | edited | Basile Starynkevitch | CC BY-SA 4.0 | added 336 characters in body |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 10:01 | history | edited | CommunityBot | Commonmark migration | |
| Jul 13, 2019 at 8:29 | comment | added | ZeroKnight | Just to clarify, according to the GPL FAQ, #LicenseCopyOnly and #NoticeInSourceFile at the time of this writing, it's not required to include the How to Apply... text to every source file; notice the language uses "should" and not "must". However, they do strongly recommend that you follow this practice. | |
| Oct 23, 2017 at 4:51 | history | edited | Basile Starynkevitch | CC BY-SA 3.0 | added 166 characters in body |
| Oct 23, 2017 at 2:23 | comment | added | alhelal | @BasileStarynkevitch For my GitHub project ThesisWork I add GPLv3 as LICENSE. Should I follow your answer for this type of project? | |
| Sep 4, 2017 at 13:00 | comment | added | Mael | From personal experience: to have a project accepted on Savannah you have to have a license in every file. | |
| Jul 8, 2016 at 0:59 | comment | added | Josh | I would downvote if I could. This is pretty specific to the GPL, and/or GPLv3, and the question doesn't mention that... | |
| Dec 18, 2011 at 18:59 | comment | added | Basile Starynkevitch | To be picky, it might be difficult to generate a year for the copyright of generated files. GCC itself has a small issue about that for gengtype (the generator of code for the garbage collector inside GCC), but nobody really cares... | |
| Dec 18, 2011 at 18:57 | comment | added | Andrew Dalke | Point taken. I know now one paragraph about MELT. In general it's best that generated files include the copyright notice as it's very hard to "attach" the license otherwise. Eg, "yacc" and "lex" are restricted in what they can do. | |
| Dec 18, 2011 at 18:36 | comment | added | Basile Starynkevitch | I agree, and I said "source file" on purpose. Actually, CAIA's system is a bit like Smalltalk: the image is in data files, and the CAIA "source files" I mentionned are generated C files. However, my GCC MELT (a branch of GCC, under FSF copyright) is also meta-programmed, and I do take care to generate copyright notice comments in generated C files (and I put them in hand-written C & MELT code). | |
| Dec 18, 2011 at 18:33 | comment | added | Andrew Dalke | It can't be mandatory because there are systems, like Smalltalk images, which don't express source code as files. They say "safest" and "should", not "must." What they recommend is an easily understood guideline with little chance of someone making an error, but it is definitely not "practically mandatory." | |
| Dec 18, 2011 at 16:51 | history | answered | Basile Starynkevitch | CC BY-SA 3.0 |